Orginally aired on October 25, 1996 - In part 113 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson discusses a military movement after the Battle of Antietam that proves that it is sometimes dangerous to press a retreating army.
#113 – The Fight at Shepherdstown
Oftentimes in war, small but captivating events become lost in the bigger picture of the conflict. Indeed, of warfare in particular, it can be said that the whole is the sum of its parts. A military movement after the battle of Antietam is a case in point.
During the night of September 18-19, 1862, R. E. Lee’s Confederate army withdrew from the Maryland battlefield that had been the scene of the bloodiest one day in American history. Weary Southern columns made their way across the Potomac River into Virginia. Union General George McClellan ordered a detachment of infantry and artillery to make a cautious pursuit. Some 2,000 Federals eased over the Potomac, captured a few guns, and continued forward to see what further damage they could do.
Word of their presence reached General “Stonewall” Jackson, who quickly sent the 2,000-man division of A. P. Hill to blunt this new threat. Hill was an aggressive general who never shunned a fight. He dispersed his men in a cornfield. In their front was open ground dotted by wheat stacks that extended 1,000 yards all the way to the Potomac.
Union infantry soon appeared. At Hill’s command, two lines of Confederates started forward with a yell. Federal cannon across the river opened fire. It had little effect on the Southerners. One Carolina soldier exclaimed: “It was as if each man felt that the fate of the army was centered on himself.”
The opposing lines came together with an explosion. The main Federal unit engaged was the 118th Pennsylvania. It had been in the field only twenty days. The Pennsylvanians were so inexperienced that one company had crossed the Potomac while its captain remained behind to guard the tons of regimental baggage. Worse, half of the muskets issued to the Pennsylvanians were defective and would not fire.
As A. P. Hill’s veterans stormed forward, the 118th Pennsylvania tired hard to put up a fight. For thirty minutes, soldiers blue and gray grappled in the open field. The Confederates soon gained some high grounds that gave them a clear field of fire on the entire Union line. A deadly volley of musketry swept the position. With that, a Southern colonel noted, Billy Yanks “fled precipitately and in great confusion to the river”. The 118th Pennsylvania – “in an utterly disorganized and demoralized condition,” one witness said – let the way.
Just as Union soldiers got to the riverbank, Confederates gained the high bluffs overlooking the stream. Now a veritable turkey-shoot began as Southern infantry blazed away at the floundering Yankees who were seeking desperately to get across the Potomac on an abandoned dam. Blue-clad bodies soon hung along the outline of the water barrier; other Federals bobbed lifeless as the swift-flowing Potomac bore them downstream toward Washington.
The one-sided contest had lasted no more than two hours. Union losses exceeded 350 men. Four out of five of the casualties were in the 118th Pennsylvania, which had undergone a horrible baptism in battle. Confederate losses, mostly from artillery fire, were 30 killed and 260 wounded.
Powell Hill closed his official report of the action by declaring: “This was a wholesome lesson to the enemy, and taught them to know that it may be dangerous sometimes to press a retreating army.” McClellan immediately pulled his army back to Antietam. He had experienced one too many fights with Lee.
Today no highway marker identifies the site of the Shepherdstown fight. That September 19 action is a footnote in history. Yet for 650 soldiers who died or suffered there, it was a climax to their military service; and for more than 100 families back home, Shepherdstown marked the end of their hopes for the future.
How callous war can be.
